Anonymous wrote:My family is full of takers. I do not put them ahead of my own family and only give when I am moved to. We are better off than the rest of my family and are more generous but my family began to expect and not appreciate our generosity and so I stopped.
Your Dad was trying to buy their love. Or he wanted to take care of them and not you. You might want to try to figure out what triggered this.
Good luck.
OP here. Thank you for putting your own family first.
Yes, he was trying to buy their love and respect. He needed to show off to outsiders too.
He assumed that he did not need to impress us, like we could be taken for granted.
I remember one time that we took a visiting family out with their kids who were like 5 and 6, I was 9. Their kids wanted a happy meal, and they were visiting from overseas. They had heard about McDs and dreamed of coming to America to try it. My father warned us before hand not to ask for one thing (something we were always told). We never ever dreamed of going to so much as a McDonalds, but there we were pulling up to the restaurant and my father took those kids in and bought them these meals. We were left out and drooled as we watched them eat. We always knew, guests first. The funny thing is that their mother just assumed we did not want anything. This was a TINY example, but it still stings.